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'We've been saying this would be a tough election year, but it's a hallucination for Republican leaders to think they'll take back the House -- this is not 1994 deja vu,' Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Chris Van Hollen told POLITICO.
AP Photo

“If you take the Republican numbers on how many recruits they have ... and divide it with the amount of cash on hand, they don’t have the funds to compete in these districts,” said Van Hollen. “It’s going to be a wake-up call to some of these candidates when they see the people urging them on don’t have the resources.”

The financial disparity means the NRCC will be dependent on the RNC — which it has relied upon for reinforcement in the past — but there’s no guarantee the RNC will have the cash to dispense, or that House races will be a priority in a year when the GOP also has significant opportunities in Senate and governor’s races.

All of this means the NRCC will probably have to rely on outside conservative third-party groups to lend a hand. And, well, sometimes they can be a little off-message, which won’t be helpful with independent voters.

The GOP civil war

Sure, the Democratic base seems a bit dispirited at the moment. November turnout is a concern. But that’s nothing compared with what’s happening on the right. The GOP is at war with itself, from Florida to California and lots of other places in between.

Remember the New York 23 special election? That didn’t turn out so well for the GOP. There’s lots more where that came from. According to Democratic estimates, there are anywhere from a dozen to as many as 50 GOP primaries where a conservative grass-roots/tea party candidate is vying with a Republican incumbent or candidate.

Not much good can come of that. It will force candidates to the right — jeopardizing their general election chances in many districts — and raises the prospect of numerous bloodied Republican nominees limping out of the primary season.

Do the math

Republicans simply cannot hit the magic number of 40 seats without a surge in Democratic retirements. And so far, the number of retirements is not at alarming levels. In the 1994 GOP avalanche, more than one-third of the seats Democrats lost — 22 of 56 — were open seats created by retirements. Only 34 members lost outright, and at least 10 were still catching up from the earlier 1992 redistricting.

In total, 31 House Democrats announced their retirement in 1994. This year? So far, only 10 Democrats, which is not only below the historic norm, but also below the overall number of Republicans — 13, to be exact — who aren’t seeking reelection. And there probably aren’t that many more Democratic retirements to come. Van Hollen has been aggressive in reaching out to possible retirees and has received commitments from most of those who represent the seats most at risk that they’re running for another term.

Democrats will win on the economy

In the end, the state of the economy will play an enormous role in determining the outcome of the midterm House elections. While a rough economy will obviously hurt Democratic candidates, the economic recovery plan has taken the country out of free-fall and started to stabilize the economy — Democrats will get the credit for it, as well as for cleaning up the mess left by the previous administration and the Republican Congress.

“Republicans have been rooting for failure, and that’s not the way to win elections,” Van Hollen said. “I think that the big issue will be the state of the economy and whether or not voters have confident things will turn around. We’ve got a long way to go in political time, and as we begin to turn the corner on the economy, I believe people’s confidence will be restored.”

Readers' Comments (207)

These out-of-touch fools are whistling past the graveyard! There are experts that say Republicans stand to take 45 House seats and at least 5 Senate seats. A tsunami is coming, you blood-sucking parasites. Be afraid. You are grossly underestimating the ANGER that is seething just under the surface in this country. We are mad as hell and will take our revenge, beginning next Tuesday and continuing in November and again in 2012. DemocRATS are so finished!

These out-of-touch fools are whistling past the graveyard! There are experts that say Republicans stand to take 45 House seats and at least 5 Senate seats. A tsunami is coming, you blood-sucking parasites. Be afraid. You are grossly underestimating the ANGER that is seething just under the surface in this country. We are mad as hell and will take our revenge, beginning next Tuesday and continuing in November and again in 2012. DemocRATS are so finished!

16.8% increase over last year record deficit.. gee I wonder what happens when every nation in the world tells us to screw...

wait I know >> Pass bills and call them Health Care Plan .. and Cap and trade.. yep it's like taking candy from a baby right..

To Bad these career politicans are afiard of their own shawdows..

Martha Coakley .. that what our beloved democraic party thinks will fill the senate seat...

She is a diaster folks.. I wiill not dicuss her record because other than cutting back room deals that allows aa murders and sex offenders walks.. what will I say positive about the AG...F in joke .. and the democrats .. who are you going to blame???????

Increase troops .. troops spending .. Unemploment U 3 numbers in 3 months are barracks 16 months they kick you off the U3 and place you on the U 6 numbers....Record spending past two years .. record unemployment for the past year .. and they think thye will stay in office..

Voters dislike Republicans even more than Democrats? Where have you guys been the past year? Read the polls. All of them. In the twelve months since the inauguration, public approval of the parties has exactly reversed, with Republicans now garnering substantially more public approval than Democrats on every single domestic issue. Every one. You can chalk that up to the Dems arrogrant paternalistic attitude whereby they insist on forcing through legislation that the public neither wants nor needs. Fortunately, the remedy will soon be at hand in the form of the ballot box. The train wreck that's coming in November for the Jackass party will be of historic proportions and entirely of their own making.

There is no accounting for the stupidity of The American Public. Look, they re-elected George W. Bush for crying out loud. I don't count W's first term as a win, thanks to his brother Jeb, Scalia in The Superme Court, and the corrupt politicians in Florida, he stole the first election.

If Americans are idiotic enough to hand the reins of power to The GOP (Grumpy Old People), the party that led this country to a death spiral economically, made America a laughing stock in the International Community, believes there is no health care crisis, and that is so tied to special interests and big money, well, guess what? They deserve them and it would be time for me to get the heck outta Dodge!

Voters dislike Republicans even more than Democrats? Where have you guys been the past year? Read the polls. All of them.

Where's the deficit-resolution plan?

Where's the health care plan?

Where's the climate change plan?

Where's the homosexual-inclusion-in-society plan?

Where's the unemployment-decreasing plan?

These are some of the issues the American people want dealt with. I don't see any GOP offerings in any of them besides health care, and frankly the GOP bill was awful. Be angry with the Democrats' plans all you want. Winning requires more than that. Offer concrete ideas, and maybe we'll wake up to a Republican majority next year.

I don't think the GOP will take the house this year, however the Dem's had better watch thier P's and Q's because trying to cram Healthcare down the average Joe's throat has everone who can think for themselves mad as can be. The GOP has a good chance to take enough seats to keep the House alot more honest and lose the attitude they know best in spite od public opinion being differently.

With the anger in Massachusetts by Independent, many Democrat and nearly all Republican voters who now seem heavily leaning to outsider Scott Brown, it's clear to me that a real revolt is underway across America, including the normally Democratic stronghold of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Many Democrats are clearly in panic mode and running scared, resorting to all kinds of name-calling and smear tactics. If they do lose control of the House in November 2010, Obama's, Reid's and Pelosi's health care plan is fatally doomed. The New York Daily News has an item today of interest: "Not a Pretty Picture for Coakley", the far-Left Democratic pro-abortion, pro-homosexual marriage, Liberal who was once considered an easy shoo-in to fill the seat by Democrat-for-Life Senator Edward Kennedy. ("Camelot" was over decades ago, and it's time to face reality.) The newspaper article says, regarding the outrageous strong-arm, mafiosi tactics by Martha Coakley's henchman (I understand an Obama appointee) outside a Washington, D.C. restaurant when a reporter tried to ask her a few questions: "When your political staff knocks reporters down in front of you—and you are Massachusetts’ top law enforcer—and you say you don’t know what happened, it doesn’t paint a pretty picture.... It’s hard to say definitively what happened here, but it sure looks like a campaign in disarray that went to extreme lengths to keep the press from asking questions."

Rather than reading nearly all reputable and scientific national polls and seeing the proverbial "handwriting on the wall", the hardened and deaf Democrats continue to pursue an unpopular left-wing agenda of more tax and trillion dollar spending sprees. They've clearly forgotten the ordinary people who they were supposed to represent. Now we are witnessing true Democracy in action, and by that I do not mean "Democrat". If you cancelled all the political parties today and simply listened to ordinary average people who are talking, you would hear from them that they are very, very angry and completely dissatisfied and unhappy with what's been going on in Washington year after year.

With the anger in Massachusetts by Independent, many Democrat and nearly all Republican voters who now seem heavily leaning to outsider Scott Brown, it's clear to me that a real revolt is underway across America, including the normally Democratic stronghold of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Many Democrats are clearly in panic mode and running scared, resorting to all kinds of name-calling and smear tactics. If they do lose control of the House in November 2010, Obama's, Reid's and Pelosi's health care plan is fatally doomed. The New York Daily News has an item today of interest: "Not a Pretty Picture for Coakley", the far-Left Democratic pro-abortion, pro-homosexual marriage, Liberal who was once considered an easy shoo-in to fill the seat by Democrat-for-Life Senator Edward Kennedy. ("Camelot" was over decades ago, and it's time to face reality.) The newspaper article says, regarding the outrageous strong-arm, mafiosi tactics by Martha Coakley's henchman (I understand an Obama appointee) outside a Washington, D.C. restaurant when a reporter tried to ask her a few questions: "When your political staff knocks reporters down in front of you—and you are Massachusetts’ top law enforcer—and you say you don’t know what happened, it doesn’t paint a pretty picture.... It’s hard to say definitively what happened here, but it sure looks like a campaign in disarray that went to extreme lengths to keep the press from asking questions."

Rather than reading nearly all reputable and scientific national polls and seeing the proverbial "handwriting on the wall", the hardened and deaf Democrats continue to pursue an unpopular left-wing agenda of more tax and trillion dollar spending sprees. They've clearly forgotten the ordinary people who they were supposed to represent. Now we are witnessing true Democracy in action, and by that I do not mean "Democrat". If you cancelled all the political parties today and simply listened to ordinary average people who are talking, you would hear from them that they are very, very angry and completely dissatisfied and unhappy with what's been going on in Washington year after year. They want a system that is representative of them, not of special interests and behold to left-wing ideologies.

Van Hollen, Pelosi's waterboy, has to spout this nonsense. There is a high probability that the GOP will win the House but he just can't say it. What's more important is that the GOP has a plan if it happens. Simply winning because the Dems are losing is not a plan.

It is unlikely that Republicans will take back the House. But the Democrats are missing the point.

If overall, the Democratic/Obama policies, agendas, behavior during the past year (while they had the majority) were so good, why are they even talking about the tough landscape in 2010? Why so many of them are worried about losing in November?

Republicans don't have a snowsballs chance in hell to pull this off..Republicans NEVER offer any solutions to any problems, when there is a crisis theres never a repub to be found, they are the absent (minded) party

pretty much the same as i have said throughout all of last year. the GOP hasn't won a special election since dubya's re-election nor have they added seats during the midterms or generals. the party of NO has become the "regional" party and on its way to becoming the party of irrelevancy. blaming the "lawn jockey" steele for your woes is useless, while he does now play a factor, the GOP had this these issues long before steele became RNC. he does however make a convenient scapegoat.

Republicans don't have a snowsballs chance in hell to pull this off..Republicans NEVER offer any solutions to any problems, when there is a crisis theres never a repub to be found, they are the absent (minded) party

Your blind partisanship is duly noted. The rats have not come up with one solution for this country: